Top 10 Certifications with Staying Power

One of the most well-known certifications in the computer industry is the A+ certification from CompTIA, a computer IT industry association that is vendor neutral. This certification is the entry-level certification for anyone working on computers; it covers both hardware and software. This certification is one of the oldest IT certifications, originally appearing in 1993, and has been updated four times since then as the IT industry has changed. As there will always be a need for people to fix computers, there will always be people who are A+ certified. Many vendors (such as Dell and Lenovo) require their technicians to have this certification to work with them.

IT is a very fast-changing industry - what is hot today may be a tiny niche market in only a few years and things that few have heard of may be huge trends in the same timeframe. That having been said, many certifications have a long life span, by which we don't mean that the certification is good for many years before it expires, but rather that the certification has been around and will be around (as best as the future is predictable) for a long time. This does not imply that recertification on new versions and/or continuing education credits are not required to maintain certification, however. Predicting the future is always challenging, not the least a future in IT, but these certifications are good bets.

The top 10 certifications that meet this criterion (in no particular order), identified by Global Knowledge instructor John Hales, include the following. Note that the certifications are broad in terms of topics covered and are not all strictly IT administrator-based.